22-year-old soldier had previously been deemed unfit for front line service

A massive manhunt ensued after a soldier with surname Yim shot and killed five other South Korean troops and wounded seven others. He was captured Monday after a failed suicide attempt, officials said. (Ahn Young-joon/Associated Press)

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An armed South Korean soldier holed up in a forest two days after killing five colleagues was captured Monday following a suicide attempt as his family pleaded with him to surrender, the country's Defence Ministry said.

The 22-year-old sergeant, surnamed Yim, shot himself in the upper left chest as his father and brother approached, a Defence Ministry official said. He said Yim was taken to a hospital but his life wasn't in danger. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of department rules, gave no further details.

Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said the soldier would later be handed over to military investigators. Soldiers retrieved Yim's rifle and ammunition at the site.

He fired Sunday on the soldiers chasing him, injuring a platoon leader. On Monday, officials said a South Korean soldier was wounded by suspected friendly fire.

Unfit for front line duty

South Korean troops and police surrounded Yim in a forested area about seven kilometres from where the shootings occurred. Yim's parents were called in to attempt to convince him to surrender. (Ahn Young-joon/The Associated Press)

Earlier Monday, troops surrounding Yim in the forest tossed him a mobile phone so he could talk to his father. They also threw him bread and bottled water. His parents went to the area to try to persuade him to surrender.

It wasn't clear what triggered the rampage; there was no indication that South Korea's bitter rival, North Korea, was involved.

Yim was scheduled to complete his nearly two years of mandatory military service in September, according to Defence officials.

Initial personality tests in April of last year put Yim within a group of soldiers who need special attention and are unfit for front line duty, according to the Defence Ministry. But tests last November concluded he had improved and could serve in the front line area, Defence officials said.

The rampage comes as South Koreans grapple with worries over public safety in the wake of an April ferry disaster that left more than 300 people dead or missing. And some in Seoul have raised questions about the discipline and readiness of South Korea's military, which is under near-constant threat from a North Korea that has recently staged a series of missile and artillery drills, traded fire with the South near a disputed maritime boundary and threatened South Korea's leader.

History of violence

Hundreds of thousands of troops from the rival Koreas are squared off along the world's most heavily armed border. The Korean Peninsula is still technically in a state of war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Shooting rampages against fellow soldiers happen occasionally. South Korea's military maintains a conscription system requiring all able-bodied men to serve about two years because of the North Korean threat.

In 2011, a 19-year-old marine corporal went on a shooting rampage at a Gwanghwa Island base, just south of the maritime boundary with North Korea. Military investigators later said that corporal was angry about being shunned and slighted and showed signs of mental illness before the shooting.

In 2005, a soldier tossed a hand grenade and opened fire at a front-line army unit in a rampage that killed eight colleagues and injured several others. Pfc. Kim Dong-min told investigators he was enraged at superiors who verbally abused him.